Experimental and numerical studies of bolted T-stub steel connection with different flange thicknesses connected to a rigid base

摘要

This paper presents experimental and Finite Element (FE) analyses of T-Stub steel connections. Such connection may be classified as rigid, semi-rigid, or flexible. For rigid T-Stub, no praying action is observed. For flexible T-Stubs, praying action may overload the bolts. A better knowledge of the contact stresses distribution between T-Stub flange and support base helps understand the resistance mechanism of the T-Stub connections. The contact area between T-Stub flange and support base depends largely on the flange thickness. This paper investigates the effect of the thickness of T-Stub connections fixed to a rigid support base. Nonlinear FE models utilizing ABAQUS software were developed to study the behavior of T-Stub connections. The results obtained from FE analyses were verified against experimental results. A parametric study was conducted to observe the effects of flange thickness on (a) the contact stress distribution between the flange and rigid base, (b) the prying actions on bolts, and (c) the shear stresses on bolts. The results from experimental tests and FE analyses were compared with T-Stub resistance capacity calculated using the provisions of Eurocode-3 and AISC.